Differences in lifetime earnings by educational attainment have been of great research and policy interest. Although a large literature examines earnings differences by educational attainment, research on lifetime earnings—which refers to total accumulated earnings from entry into the labor market until retirement—remains limited because of the paucity of adequate data. Using data that match respondents in the Survey of Income and Program Participation to their longitudinal tax earnings as recorded by the Social Security Administration, we estimate the 50-year work career effects of education on lifetime earnings for men and women. By overcoming the purely synthetic cohort approach, our results provide a more realistic appraisal of actual patterns of lifetime earnings. Detailed estimates are provided for gross lifetime earnings by education; net lifetime earnings after controlling for covariates associated with the probability of obtaining a bachelor’s degree; and the net present 50-year lifetime value of education at age 20. In addition, we provide estimates that include individuals with zero earnings and disability. We also assess the adequacy of the purely synthetic cohort approach, which uses age differences in earnings observed in cross-sectional surveys to approximate lifetime earnings. Overall, our results confirm the persistent positive effects of higher education on earnings over different stages of the work career and over a lifetime, but also reveal notably smaller net effects on lifetime earnings compared with previously reported estimates. We discuss the implications of these and other findings.

Workers who begin their retirement transition before cultural and institutional timetables experience the worst health outcomes; this finding offers partial support to the psychosocial-materialist approach that emphasizes the benefits of retiring later. Continued employment after traditionally expected retirement age, however, offers no health benefits. In combination, these findings offer some support for the cultural-institutional approach but suggest that we need to modify our understanding of how cultural-institutional forces operate. Retiring too early can be problematic but no disadvantages are associated with late retirements. Raising the retirement age, therefore, could potentially reduce subjective health of retirees by expanding the group of those whose retirements would be considered early.

Our understanding about the relationship between education and lifetime earnings often neglects differences by field of study. Utilizing data that matches respondents in the Survey of Income and Program Participation to their longitudinal earnings records based on administrative tax information, we investigate the trajectories of annual earnings following the same individuals over 20 years and then estimate the long-term effects of field of study on earnings for U.S. men and women. Our results provide new evidence revealing large lifetime earnings gaps across field of study. We show important differences in individuals’ earnings trajectories across the different stages of the work-life by field of study. In addition, the gaps in 40-year (i.e., ages 20 to 59) median lifetime earnings among college graduates by field of study are larger, in many instances, than the median gap between high school graduates and college graduates overall. Significant variation is also found among graduate degree holders. Our results uncover important similarities and differences between men and women with regard to the long-term earnings differentials associated with field of study. In general, these findings underscore field of study as a critical dimension of horizontal stratification in educational attainment. Other implications of the empirical findings are also discussed.

We examine immigrants’ earnings trajectories, and measure both the extent and speed with which they are able to reduce the earnings gap with natives, using a unique dataset that links respondents of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to their longitudinal earnings obtained from individual tax records. Our analysis addresses key debates regarding ethnoracial and cohort differences in immigrants’ earnings trajectories. First, we find a racially-differentiated pattern of earnings assimilation whereby black and Hispanic immigrants are less able to catch up with native whites’ earnings compared to white and Asian immigrants, but are able to almost reach earnings parity with natives of their same race and ethnicity. Second, we find no evidence of a declining “quality” of immigrant cohorts even after controlling for their ethnoracial composition and human capital. Immigrants arriving since 1994 actually experience similar or slightly higher earnings growth compared to immigrants from earlier eras. We identify a pattern of accelerated assimilation in which more educated immigrants experience much of their earnings growth during the first years after arriving.

Despite efforts to improve the labor market situation of African Americans, the racial earnings gap has endured in the United States. Most prior studies on racial inequality have considered its cross-sectional or period patterns. This study adopts a demographic perspective to examine the evolution of earnings trajectories among white and black men across cohorts in the United States. Using more than 40 years of longitudinal earnings records from the U.S. Social Security Administration matched to the Survey of Income and Program Participation, our analyses reveal that the cohort trends in the racial earnings gap follow quite different patterns by education. Race continues to be a salient dimension of economic inequality over the life course and across cohorts, particularly at the top and the bottom of the educational distribution. Although the narrowing of the racial gap among high school graduates is in itself a positive development, it unfortunately derives primarily from the deteriorating economic position for whites without a college degree rather than an improvement in economic standing of their black counterparts.

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young adults who were married were more likely than all other groups (including cohabitors) to perceive retirement as an important savings goal and to have an individual retirement account. Married persons were more likely than their single counterparts to participate in a defined contribution pension plan. Single women fared particularly poorly on retirement savings outcomes. A range of possible theoretical links between marriage and retirement savings at young adulthood are discussed.Limited retirement savings is a major contributing factor to economic vulnerability among the elderly (

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